


pineapple for the road?

by hockeysmut



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, as in the TV show with Shaun Spencer the psychic detective, i have nothing against the redwings - i just needed a bad guy soz, literally no mention of a pineapple anywhere but since when do fic titles need to make sense, psych au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-04 11:33:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18342848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hockeysmut/pseuds/hockeysmut
Summary: Tyson has convinced the Denver PD that he's psychic and he occasionally gets called in to work on cases with his best friend Nate





	pineapple for the road?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [racheesi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/racheesi/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [racheesi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/racheesi/pseuds/racheesi) in the [wesmashing](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/wesmashing) collection. 



> writing all the bits where shaun (tyson) and gus (nate) just talk with their eyebrows in the show was … interesting… so please bear with me. also quatros quesos dos fritos is a real thing (look it up on binging with babish). enjoy!
> 
> warnings: a weird interrogation scene but no actual violence and the mention of a gun that is not used
> 
>  
> 
> **Prompt:**
> 
> A Psych AU featuring Tyson (as Shawn), Nate (as Gus), Gabe (as Jules), EJ (as Lassiter), and LG (as Chief Vick). Tyson has convinced the Detroit PD that he's psychic and he occasionally gets called in to work on cases with his best friend Nate. The problem is, Nate is the only one who knows he's not psychic and he's starting to fall hard for Gabe.

_Present Day / Denver, Colorado_

The pavement was wetter than Gabe expected, but he couldn’t slow down the car now and risk this guy getting away. He and EJ had been meticulously planning this sting for weeks now and a bit of rain wasn’t going to get in the way of taking down a major Denver drug dealer.

The yellow car in front of them suddenly veered right and with only a small warning cry to his partner, Gabe yanked the wheel to follow down the same narrow street, which had no exits and was lined on both sides by dumpsters for local restaurants. Beside him, EJ nearly crowed with victory when he recognised the street as a dead end with nowhere left to go but straight into a 30 foot tall building.

Everything was suddenly brought to a standstill and all they could see was a yellow streak attempt to pull a 180 in a very confined space and crash straight into a dumpster. The resulting crash was loud and no doubt disrupted several meals in the nearby restaurants. 

“Got ‘em” EJ yelled and sprung from the car to check for injuries and cuff the drug dealer. Gabe could feel the adrenaline start to leave his body already - a side-effect of having so many cases like this one was the immunity to a long adrenaline high - so he took a moment to sink back into the cushions of the car and enjoy the look of glee on EJ’s face when he found no injuries and could cuff the guy there and then. 

A bright light and humming started to come from the driver’s-side door as Gabe began to pull himself together to help EJ. Gabe recognised the ringtone and smiled to himself - it’s Tyson probably calling to congratulate them on getting this guy. The spirits in the alley must have been reaching out to him to tell him that they got him. Gabe fumbled into the side container and came up with the phone just seconds before it stopped ringing.

Pressing the phone to his ear, he expected a happy shout coming from the device and was instead met with “You’ve got the wrong guy,” followed by the distinctive crunch of quatro quesos dos fritos coming from the other end of the line.

Tyson’s statement was met by an astonished silence followed by a sharp cry of “What!?”.

“Lenjamin died yesterday. Also we’re out of milk, can you get it on your way home?”

“Um yeah, I guess.” Gabe sighed as Tyson hung up. Making eye contact, EJ shook his head from where he was standing by the bent car door. 

“Radio for an ambulance, this wasn’t our guy”

* * *

_30 minutes later / Denver PD Station_

“I’m afraid that Len and his cell phone contract expired on Tuesday.” Tyson’s voice came from afar and Gabe, like a dog on a scent, followed it to find Tyson perched on his desk fiddling with his rubber band ball.

“How could you have possibly known this?” Gabe asked, already knowing the answer he’d get was Tyson’s psychic senses. “And what kind of name is Lenjamin?”

Tyson shifted and felt the death certificate he had picked up from Zadorov, the coroner, crush a bit more in his back pocket.

“It’s Benjamin, must have been a miscommunication. His spirit woke me up this morning telling me something ridiculous about frosted flakes.” Tyson shrugs the lie off. “Once he got off the topic of cereal, we became buddies. You know how it is?”

The joke seems to pass over Gabe’s head as Tyson serenely smiled up at him.

“What.. . no I do not know what it’s like to make friends with a ghost! How could I?!” Gabe ran an agitated hand through his hair as EJ huffed and stormed off to his desk. “Where’s Nate anyway? And get out of my seat, I have to catch the actual dealer now.”

Tyson chuckled and spun himself around in the chair before hopping out and perching on the desk instead.

“Eh, we already found him for you. They picked him up about an hour ago so he should be in holding cell two right about now. Nates picking up the commission check from LG.” 

“Huh, that’s a surprisingly un-flashy win from you” Gabe mulled over the development as he sorted through casefiles to use for the integration. EJ shouted for him from his desk and Gabe just sighed and looked at Tyson. “For once, could we get a perp in a way that won’t send EJ into a fit of rage?”

Tyson just laughed, hopped off the desk, and started to head down the hall to the Chief's office.

“You know that’s not my style, Blondie!” He heard a small sigh come from behind him as he opens the door to the chief’s office.

Tyson walked into the office, finding the chief leaning back in her chair as Nate sat on the other side of the desk uncomfortably. Chief Gardner sat up as he entered the room and beckoned him over to the desk.

“What’s up chief,” Tyson casually said, falling into the chair to the right of Nate.

“I have a case for the two of you,” the chief said with no preamble. “A B&E near the rink. We think a small crew run by Tyler Bertuzzi has been staying at the rink and casing the museum nearby the rink. We need you to get a read on the building and see if you can find out their hideout.”

As the chief spoke, Nate and Tyson’s hands were slowly creeping closer and closer together for a high five under the table.

“Question,” Tyson interrupted. “Will skates be provided or do we have to bring our own? Because I know Nate has his in tip-top shape but I’m going to need to get mine sharpened.”

“You are simply going to go with the detectives to search the rink, not to engage in shenanigans. Nathan I am trusting you to keep your partner in line; Bertuzzi doesn’t have a record of being the nicest to people on his tail.” Nate nodded seriously, which they both knew was a lie.

“Go meet Detectives Johnson and Landeskog, they will give you a lift to the scene.” Gardner commanded, ushering them to the door.

* * *

 

_1 hour later / Pepsi Center, Denver_

After following the detective’s car to the rink with minimal squabbling, they all arrived in one piece (and with the ice cream that EJ had rolled his eyes at over stopping for). They went in with a little fuss at security over EJ’s excessive weaponry. The rink looked quite peaceful until they started to descend further into the stadium. As the detectives lead the way through the corridors, Tyson began to notice things - doors that lead to storage closets with scuff marks at their corners from being slightly propped open, and strange white lines marked under certain signage.

Tyson nudged Nate as just as Gabe and EJ turned a corner. Had they come back around all they would have found was Tyson and Nate doing a series of complicated hand and eyebrow gestures to each other, with Nate eventually giving up and storming after the detectives as Tyson slunk away down the corridors.

While Tyson was doing his own ‘sleuthing’, the detectives didn’t notice the disappearance until they were halfway down the stairs with Nate just behind them. With a simple lie about how ‘Tyson needs to do his own thing to get the energy of the rink’ they were all on their way to the suspected hideout again.

As Tyson followed the weird lines he kept seeing and wound his way down the stairs into the less-used storage areas of the rink, he started to smell something that reeked of gasoline.

“Must be the zambonis” he muttered to himself as he creeped around a corner to find another storage closet propped open. Cautiously approaching it, he switched his phone flashlight on and investigated the area. No noise was coming from inside, so he cautiously opened the door to find nothing but a few sleeping bags neatly stacked next to a mountain of papers, which were hidden badly behind some sad-looking mops. The back wall of the closet was lined with computer tech that was throwing off some major heat and he could feel his ice cream cone start to melt down his hand. Clearly the only solution to that was to shove the entire thing in his mouth and deal with a sticky hand to continue the investigation.

Some rifling through the stack led him to believe that they were going to run the sting on Monday, if the scribbles on the back of a shoddily drawn map were to be believed.

Down the hall a metal clanging was heard like the sound of a door opening, so Tyson quickly returned everything to its original place with only minor ice cream spots, and snuck out of the closet and down the hall. He ducked into a door labelled ‘toilet’ until he could hear the distinct sound of EJ’s voice discussing the goings on at the horse track last Saturday. As EJ started in on a story they’d all heard on at least 63% of the cases they had worked together on before, Tyson popped his head out to join them.

He was met with an astounded “This is where you’ve been?” from Gabe as he joined up with Nate.

“Had to get a read off the pipes, the water spirits that float around this place can tell you a lot, you know.” Tyson said with as much of a straight face as he can muster. “They say Bednar’s thinking of hiring Nate to play defense.”

“I can’t believe you. This is a professional police investigation.” EJ stated, a slight bit of awe in his voice at the rampant unprofessionalism.

“Oh relax, they won’t hire the Dawg, he’s far too nice to play defense,” Tyson mocked, and slung an arm around Nate’s shoulder only to be met with a quick shrug off from Nate and a roll of EJ’s eyes.

“Did you get anything?” Nate quietly whispered to him as they drop back from the detectives and continue down the corridor away from where Tyson’s been snooping.

“I think they’re moving in on Monday but they know I was in this corridor so I can’t bring them back to the evidence without them getting suspicious of my gift.” Nate noddded in agreement and suggested keeping the ‘psychic vibes’ unspecific.  

As they wound their way through the rink, occasionally stopping to question employees and check out rooms when Tyson got a ‘vibe’ from them, Tyson started to feel a tickle on the back of his neck as if someone was watching them. Tyson and Nate noted that most of the rink was covered in CCTV so they might be able to check that route.

After about an hour of making little progress Tyson started to get hungry, so he and Nate peeled off and headed out for food. 

* * *

_Later that night / Outside the security room at the Pepsi Center_

“Tys please tell me you brought the lock pick stuff this time.” Nate whispered to his friend as they snuck down the hallway of the Pepsi Center.

“Dawg, you know I didn’t” Tys whispered back as he rifled through his pockets to find something viable to pick the lock with. All he could find was a safety pin and half a credit card, but he’d worked with less in tougher spots.

Surprisingly, it only took about 5 minutes to get the door open, so the two of them slipped into the room with relative ease. Nate stood watch at the door as Tyson quickly moved over to the monitors and began scrolling through the videos to find the corridor he’d been in before. He scrolled back to 3 days ago and managed to get a solid face coming down the hallway.

“Do you even know what you're looking for?” Nate whisper-shouted from the door.

“Dawg I am the best observer you know!” Tyson defended.

“The other week, you though the office sponge was a owl!”

“Well if you stopped buying them in bird colours, that would stop happening! Now get over here. I’ve got something,” Tyson whisper-shouted back. Nate quietly shut the door and made his way over to Tyson. “Who does this look like to you?”

“That’s that Bertuzzi guy the chief was showing us, wasn’t it?” Tyson nodded his head as Nate spoke. “Can you scroll back further? See when they first set up camp?”

“Yeah, yeah. Looks like it was two weeks ago.” Tyson said, trying to zoom in on the paper he’s holding. “That looks like the plan I found in the storage cupboard, just a lot less detailed.”

They scrolled through a few more days-worth of footage before Tyson decided that they should snoop around the hideout more.

After several rounds of rock-paper-scissors, Tyson found himself slowly walking down the same set of stairs from earlier that day. He followed the same white lines down the corridor but noticed that on the exits, there were blue chalk marks just to the right of some of the signs. When he opened a door with a blue mark, instead of hearing the alarm that a sign on the door claimed  would sound, there was only silence.

Filing this fact away for later, Tyson continued down the hallway and snooped through several more rooms. Most of them contained the same things he had found earlier - hand-drawn plans, gun shells, small boxes of food and supplies - but he did find a plan for ‘Howie and Larks’ to do a small casing robbery of a nearby Subway, as well as what looked like a set of notes from the job.

As he was putting the papers back in order, a gruff “Well what do we have here?” came from behind him just before everything went dark.

* * *

_An unknown amount of time later / Probably still Denver_

The lights slowly flickered on as Tyson came to. Tyson couldn’t make sense of what was around him, he could only feel the cold coming from all sides. He tried to move a hand to his head to shield himself from the light but found they were bound behind him. As he struggled with the ties he realised his chair was also sliding. Tyson cracked his eyes open against the light and tried to take in his surroundings. All he could see was white around him with some white vertical bits in the distance.

“Ah, he wakes up!” came a voice from behind Tyson. He heard the screeching of a chair being pulled across the ice before a figure sat down on it across from him. Tyson’s vision was still blurry around the edges but he could make out the familiar face.

“Bertuzzi.” Tyson huffs out.

“My reputation precedes me I see,” Bertuzzi started, leaning back in his chair. “Do I get the honour of your name? I think it’s only fair since you know mine.”

“Go to hell.” Tyson jerked against his ties as Bertuzzi just laughed at the comeback and snapped his fingers together. At the sharp sound two hands fell on Tyson’s shoulders, stopping him from moving in the chair.

“So that’s how it will be then.” Bertuzzi sighed and stood up from his chair. “Will you at least tell me what you were looking for?”

“Wow you really must not do this whole interrogation stuff often. What’s next, are you gonna say please?” Tyson quipped back as he tried to turn his head to see who has grabbed his shoulders.

When he finally managed to turn his head to the side without his vision going fuzzy, he saw a head pop up over the boards quickly. Luckily he could recognise his best friend’s haircut from anywhere - even after being knocked out. He relaxed slightly knowing they hadn’t caught Nate, which probably meant that Gabe and EJ were on their way too.

“I thought that I’d start out nice but if you want to go down the hard route then by all means…” Bertuzzi sneered and raised his hand to Tyson’s face.

“Wait! Ok easy way it is! I’m Tyson and I’m a psych detective. I was hired to investigate the hockey team here. The police think they’ve been skirting the drugging rules since they shouldn’t be doing as well as they are.”

“And how did the police come about this information?” Bertuzzi stroked his jaw and contemplated this development.

“The whispers say ‘anonymous tip’,” Tyson mocked, knowing all he had to do was stall for time.

“The whispers?” Bertuzzi put a hand to his hip in a not-so-subtle attempt to remind Tyson that he has a gun.

“Yeah, you know how ice skates tend to whisper? Well each item that has floated across this ice has its own ‘whisper’ that it leaves. Like small spirits. You get me?” Tyson continued to ramble to Bertuzzi and caught him making eye contact with someone behind him, confirming there were other people on the ice he couldn’t see.

“Tyler, buddy, you’ve gotta be fair. I’ve told you what I know so let me go. I’ll even promise not to tell the cops that I saw you here.” The hands on Tyson’s shoulders tightened uncomfortably as a warning, probably, but at the same time the sound of several doors opening at once filled the arena.

“FREEZE BERTUZZI” came from somewhere to Tyson’s right as several police swarmed the arena. The hands on his shoulders flew off and Tyson could finally start to wiggle out of his bonds.

Tyson saw Nate stand up fully as EJ made his way onto the ice cautiously, coming to cuff Bertuzzi.

“Detective! Wait for a carpet!” came a shout from one of the uniformed officers on the other side of the boards.

“I’m fine! Just sweep the building for his cohorts” EJ shouted back and began to shuffle his way across the ice with his gun still raised 

“EJ put your gun away and balance you fool.” Tyson shouted as one of the ropes holding him dropped to the ice. He immediately leaned down to undo the ties around his ankles.

For once EJ actually listened to him, glancing d back to see Gabe with a gun trained on Bertuzzi as some of the officers tried to roll carpet out to EJ.

Unhelpfully, Nate shouts “See? This is why we needed skates!” from behind the boards.

* * *

_2 hours later / Denver Police Department_

“We thought you were a goner again,” Gabe said, handing the bottle of aloe gel in his hands over to Tyson. He hissed as he applied a bit to his wrists. “You need to stop getting kidnapped by known, dangerous criminals.”

“Yeah well you know me, the spirits love to lead me to trouble,” Tyson quipped back.

“Well, can you tell your spirits to be more careful with where they lead you?” Gabe smiled softly at Tyson. “They’re handling precious goods.”

“Are they now?” Tyson said, leaning in towards Gabe.

“Oh wipe that smirk of your face. We are at work. Save it for later!”

“If my saviour insists, then I shall pay him back at home.” Tyson said, wiggling his eyebrows as he swiped his keys from the desk. He winked at Gabe and walked over to where Nate had collected the check for the case.

“Wanna check out that new double deep fryer place on Lawrence?” Tyson asked.

Nate replied with a fist bump and “You know I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> not seen in this fic: the musical episode of psych but it's all ABBA songs and EJ hates it.
> 
> you can find me on tumblr at starlightgems :)


End file.
